“In an effort to cut the £2bn annual legal aid bill in England and Wales by £350m a year, there are soon to be fewer types of civil proceedings for which people can get funding, while changes to funding for criminal cases also looks set to change.”

“A high court judge has given the work and pensions secretary 14 days to show why there should not be a judicial review of the government’s ‘spare bedroom tax’, amid concerns that disabled people will be disproportionately affected by the change in benefit rules.”

“The debate over the place of human rights in UK constitutional law continues to run and run. The Home Secretary, Theresa May MP, has recently criticised the manner in which UK judges are interpreting the right to family life protected by Article 8 of the ECHR. A private members bill tabled by Tory MP Charlie Elphicke, the Human Rights Act 1998 (Repeal and Substitution) Bill, which would de-incorporate Convention rights and replace them with diluted ‘British’ replacements, received its Second Reading on the 1st March 2013. Furthermore, at the time of writing, the Mail on Sunday is quoting Theresa May again to the effect that the next Tory election manifesto will include a commitment to withdrawing from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights, de-incorporating Convention rights, or some such equivalent measure.”

“There was no general rule that the Financial Services Authority acting pursuant to a public duty should be required to give to the court a cross-undertaking in damages in favour of third parties affected by the obtaining of a freezing injunction under section 380(3) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and/or section 37(1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981.”

“When bringing an application under section 238 of the Insolvency Act 1986 there needed to be a transaction to which the company was a party and that involved mutuality. It did not extend to unilateral actions taken by somebody who had acted without authority.”

“There have been important pronouncements over the years by the Aarhus Compliance Committee (ACC) about whether the UK planning system complies with the UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (the Aarhus Convention).”

“The Jackson reforms will leave ‘blood on the floor’ and a lack of resources behind the reforms will leave courts and judges ‘overwhelmed’ by the extra workload, Master Cook of the Queen’s Bench Division has predicted.”

“A legal challenge has been launched on behalf of 10 disabled and vulnerable children against the government’s so-called ‘spare bedroom tax’, which is expected to lead to a reduction in benefits for hundreds of thousands of people because they have at least one unused room.”